


Cohabitation

by victorine



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Ghost Hannibal Lecter, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Hand Jobs, Kinda, M/M, Murder Family, Pining, Possession, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:45:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorine/pseuds/victorine
Summary: Will had no idea why he bought the house. Other than the price – going for a song on account of its “history” – it made no sense. It was further from work, less outdoor space for the dogs, way more upkeep to attend to. But he had been… compelled. That was the only word that fit the feeling that had consumed him when he stood at its front door, a gnawing, relentless need to own the place, toxic past or not.Will Graham moves into the house of the late serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, against all advice from friends and colleagues. He quickly settles in, despite the odd noises and the dogs acting spooked. He has no idea that Hannibal, bewitched by Will's beautiful mind and still present, if not living, in the house, has his own designs on the new tenant.





	Cohabitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HotMolasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotMolasses/gifts).



> A (very, inexcusably) belated birthday present for my beloved HotMolasses. Happy birthday honey, I hope you enjoy my attempt at spectral smut! <3<3<3

Will had no idea why he bought the house. Other than the price – going for a song on account of its “history” – it made no sense. It was further from work, less outdoor space for the dogs, way more upkeep to attend to. But he had been… compelled. That was the only word that fit the feeling that had consumed him when he stood at its front door, a gnawing, relentless need to own the place, toxic past or not.  

It was, of course, against the advice of everyone he knew. Bev had been sympathetic but baffled. Alana had tried to be kind, but there was fear behind her eyes. Jack just snarled while questioning his sanity. None of them had ever come to visit, even professionally. Only Abigail ever came to see him; in fact she spent a lot of time with him and the dogs, snooping through what remained of the opulent household.

Will was still trying to legally adopt her, but purchasing the house of a late serial killer hadn’t helped his case. He was well aware of how it looked, how it only increased the aura of insanity that surrounded him. He didn’t care. The encephalitis was long gone by the time he decided to buy, and he was otherwise lucid and functional. In all the important ways, anyway.

~~~

_He was beautiful, the boy. Unkempt and unrefined but bewitchingly pretty, with sad blue eyes and a lush, pink mouth that looked forever as if it had been bitten almost to the point of bleeding. He stalked through Hannibal’s home with a brooding intensity, followed closely by his pack, and Hannibal did not even mind the damage to his floors so striking was the picture he made._

_In truth he would have preferred not to share this space in which he was suspended. And in the first few days of the boy’s residence he had made some cursory attempts to frighten him out of the place, spooking the dogs, rattling the windows, shattering a teacup or two. The only response he got was an inquisitive, almost wistful expression that passed over the boy’s face before he set about settling his pack, or sweeping up the damage. But Hannibal objected to behaving like a common poltergeist, and besides, the boy – Will, he learned – did not feel like an intrusive presence. He felt, instead, like an anchor, preventing Hannibal from losing completely all sense of himself, from becoming some spectral abstraction. He felt, oddly, like home._

_Sometimes a girl was there too, strikingly like Will in colouring and mannerisms. Hannibal had thought to get rid of her too at first, unhappy at the thought of sharing Will with anyone. But her appearances meant that Will spoke – more than the occasional commands to his dogs – and that was worth any annoyance Hannibal could imagine. Will might have been beautiful, but it was his mind and his words that rendered him radiant, revealing a dark depth of imagination and intellect that would have taken Hannibal’s breath away, had he still possessed any. He bitterly regretted that he had not met this boy while he lived; he could have carved something fearsome and gorgeous from him, and his spirit ached with the loss of it._

~~~

Will had half-expected not to make it even a few days in the place, that thoughts of the atrocities that had occurred within it would drive him out, back to his safe little house in Wolf Trap. Not to mention the weird shit that kept cropping up, strange noises and a chill in the air he couldn’t seem to get rid of. Plus the dogs were acting out, snarling at nothing and knocking his crockery all over the floor. After a few days, though, he found an unbidden peace overcame him as he settled into the house where Doctor Lecter once lived. He might have put it down to an improvement in his health, but Will had never felt so steady in himself as when he warmed his bones by the fire in Lecter’s study, read case files while sprawled on his living room floor, lay breathing deep in the dark of his bedroom. Even taking his meals in the infamous dining room held no fear for Will. There was only one space in which he hesitated to tread. He had been in it only once, to supervise the movers and defuse their curiosity, and hadn’t ventured there again. But his own curiosity was building, and Will knew he would descend before long. 

~~~

_Hunger. It was not something Hannibal had expected to feel again, the voracious appetite that had driven him in life having wasted away along with his body. But it was undeniable, the craving that now had hold of him. He found himself hovering near to Will at all times, leeching the warmth from his body, certain he could catch the smell of his skin if he ventured close enough; cheap aftershave with salt water and flame beneath it. He felt unsettlingly connected to the boy, possessive and protective and longing to know him in a way that had quickly passed from fascination into obsession._

_At night, when Will lay bound in deep yet fitful sleep, Hannibal hung above him, fascinated by the minute twitching of his handsome features. At such times he could not resist running spectral tendrils against the boy’s flesh and delighting in the shivers his touch never failed to elicit. He would have to have the boy before long, it was clear, but Hannibal held back, unsure of how long he could make such a thing last and certain that Will would leave, never to return, the second he was released. He wanted to keep Will a while longer, and so he waited for his desire to tip all the way into need._  

~~~

It was not any particular reason, in the end, that brought Will down to the basement. Frustration, perhaps, with Jack’s bullying, or simple boredom. Will wasn’t sure, was barely aware of making the slow trip down the stairs into Doctor Lecter’s former sanctum.

For several minutes, he simply stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring into the darkness, imagining he could hear screams suspended on the air, smell the lingering tang of blood. He tried to imagine Doctor Lecter in this space, painted in blood splatter, his arms working steadily as he calmly removed organs from a still-twitching body, but it was too hard. He couldn’t hold the image in place, Lecter flickering into a twisted, towering beast with black antlers, and then fading into nothing.

Will sighed, and considered turning back up the stairs. But he had been putting this off too long, exiling himself from part of his own home for the sake of ghosts he might not even find. He moved from the last step to the basement floor, and took his time examining the space, running his hands over where Lecter had kept the tools of his art, imagining cruel-edged blades and sharp-toothed saws. Casting a glance upwards, he could still see the marks where Lecter had hung meat hooks like some twisted art installation, waiting for his victims to complete his vision.

Eventually, having built up a picture in his mind, Will turned to the centre of the room, in which lay an autopsy table, its steel surface gleaming in the murk. He took slow steps towards it, almost in a daze and, after a moment’s hesitation, Will climbed onto the cold table, lay back, and allowed his mind to go blank. 

~~~

_It was as if the boy was intentionally tempting him. His prone form had been laid out like the finest feast Hannibal could ever envisage, vulnerable and defenceless, waiting for the tender touch of his knife to draw shuddering screams from his throat. This boy would have been his greatest creation, his masterpiece, his beauty forever preserved by Hannibal’s touch._

_Such a path was closed to him, Hannibal reflected bitterly, but there was another kind of beauty he could wring from the boy. He had left himself so open, his mind quiet and his body at rest, it was nothing for Hannibal to reach inside and gently, so gently take control._  

~~~

Will jolted. Something was… there was something brushing at his consciousness, like a hand gently caressing behind his eyes. It was nothing like when he sank into the mind of a killer, deliberately pushing himself into their perspective, breaching what little stability he possessed. This wasn’t a breach, this was a seduction, softly pulling at him to give in, to let go.

It was horribly tempting.

Will recoiled against it, violently lashing out against the invading force. He pulled on every shield he had ever constructed to protect himself against his own empathy, shutting down space for any mind save his own. And, for a moment, he thought it had worked, as he felt the unwanted presence unwrap itself from around him.

Then the pleasure hit him and he blacked out. 

~~~

_Hannibal was impressed. The boy had remarkable mental reserves, and a core of strength he hadn’t expected. He had nearly been thrown out completely, such was the power of Will’s reaction to his offer of seduction. But no matter, he would simply overwhelm the boy until he was begging for it, until every last vestige of reason and resistance were gone._

_A brush of contact with his every pleasure centre quickly resulted in Will’s body shocking into unconsciousness, his carefully constructed shields dropping as one, unable to cope with the assault. Taking his opportunity, Hannibal eased himself fully into Will’s mind, wresting control over his body. He could feel Will’s weak protests from somewhere deep within the space they now shared, and flooded him with warmth and lassitude, making it ever harder for him to struggle. Very soon he wouldn’t want to, anyway._  

~~~

Will came to with a gasp. He was still lying on the steel table, the sharp press of cold against his flesh quickly telling him that he had been undressed while he was unconscious. He tried to crane his neck to assess his situation, but found himself unable to move. Will was captured, pinned inside his own body, held in place by the long, hot spread of an invading presence pressed against his every atom. He could feel it moving within him, stroking curiously against the parts of himself he normally kept fiercely guarded, edging softly along the dark red recesses of his mind. For a moment, Will dared to think that might be all it wanted, to delve into his brain the way endless therapists had lusted to his whole life. But when he felt his fingers twitch into life at his side, that thought mutated into a thrill of fearful anticipation at what was surely now to come.

Sure enough, his arm lifted from the table, surprisingly steady in its movements. Nobody just watching would have known Will had been reduced to nothing but a puppet, his movements orchestrated by the presence that stretched and purred inside him. Moving without hesitation, it snaked across his chest, fingers splaying wide and lingering, until the pad of his thumb brushed gently against a rapidly-hardening nipple.

Will shuddered at the feather-light contact. The thing, the… the ghost, what else could it be, had permitted him just enough freedom to respond to its touches, and Will had no hope of controlling himself. It had been so long since anyone had touched him. He gasped as his own fingers pinched at his nipple, just the right side of cruel, the rasp of his skin familiar yet the way they moved completely new. It was good, and Will hated it, and wanted more.

His hand was already moving again, though, dragging up towards his neck where it rested for a moment, a light, warning pressure against his throat. Will swallowed, and it felt obscene, the play of muscles beneath his grasp. He felt the thing inside him vibrate with pleasure, and Will did it again, telling himself it was for the relief of knowing he still had some agency over his body, and not because he wished to please his possessor.

He felt the thing use his face to smirk. 

~~~

_His boy did not disappoint. Will was pleasingly sensitive, and so quick to submit, clearly touch-starved and unused to such overwhelming pleasure. Hannibal felt a flash of disgust for all those who must have been blind to Will’s perfection, or perhaps were deterred by his sharp edges and sharper mind. Idiots. But Hannibal could not resent them for it. To feel Will’s resistance melt into desire, meld with his own hunger, was too exquisite an experience for anyone but Hannibal to possess, and he exalted that Will now belonged to him in every way._

_A reward was in order for his beautiful boy, and Hannibal released his throat, moving Will’s hand up once again. He brushed Will’s thumb against his bottom lip, pressing it out of shape for a moment just to hear Will groan, then opened his mouth and made him suck his ring and middle fingers inside. They curled Will’s tongue, hot and wet, against his fingers, caressing every inch of flesh. As they did, Will’s other hand lifted and stroked his flank, his stomach, up to his nipples to pinch and tug at them. They keened together, in Will’s voice, and took his fingers even deeper._  

~~~

_They…_ **he** was hard, Will realised, forcing himself to remain separate from the presence possessing him. He could pretend to himself his arousal was completely separate from him too, forced upon him by the ghost. Will was very good at denial. Just… not quite good enough to cover the way he whined and tried to arch when his fingers were removed from his mouth.

He could almost hear the ghost’s indulgent laughter, shocking in its fondness. It reminded him of… but the thought fled as, without warning, his fingers wrapped around his now-straining cock and gave a small, teasing squeeze. Will gasped, and his other hand petted at his thigh, as if to settle him, as if to say ‘good boy.’ It was disturbing how good the thought made Will feel.

His hand was removed again, and Will’s hips chased it, under whose control he had no idea anymore. All he knew was how much he wanted that hand back on him, wanted to have his pleasure dragged from him. Blessedly, the contact was only gone for a second before his fingers were moving teasingly up and down his shaft, only enough contact to draw pleading, humiliating little noises from his mouth. Again, Will felt his mouth pulled into a smirk, and he wanted to scream at the ghost to just fucking **do it** already.

Perhaps it understood, or had finally had enough of teasing, because Will felt the ghost’s hunger layered over his own, soaking into him, drugging and irresistible. _Together they groaned as the stroking stopped and_ Will felt his thumb press gently against his slit, gathering the copious pre-cum he had already produced. Undeniably eager now, Will moved together with the ghost, taking his aching dick in hand and finally, firmly stroking from root to tip.

_They undulated against the pressure, hips rising and falling in one sinuous line as another groan left Will’s slack mouth. The basement filled with gasping breaths and punched-out noises, with the lewdly wet sound of Will’s hand setting a sweetly tortuous rhythm against his flesh. A twist of their hand brought a wail echoing up to the ceiling as they threw Will’s neck back, stretching into the blinding pleasure of the boy losing himself to sensation._

_They bucked up off the table, fucking up into Will’s hand violently, making the metal beneath them rattle in complaint. Their other hand crept down, bypassing Will’s dick to stroke over his balls, drawing a deep moan from low in their throat. Then their legs were raising into the air and their hand was moving further, lower, until a thumb brushed over their hole, placing just a little pressure against it, a promise and a threat._

_They came, hard and overwhelming, and with a shout ripped out of their chest._

“Hannibal! Hannibal, please!” 

~~~

The shock of it caused Hannibal to relinquish control back to Will without warning, a breach rending them apart.

Will knew him. Or had he simply guessed his identity, perhaps assuming that the house’s most recent occupant was its most likely ghost? His name had sounded so intimate on the boy’s lips though…

Will gave the answer himself, raising shakily onto his elbows, his chest still heaving for breath. “Hannibal, please, it’s you, isn’t it? Let it be you. It felt like you.” Will shuddered, and a sob escaped him. “I didn’t hope, couldn’t let myself. Not even when things kept breaking and I was hearing things and… Show yourself! Don’t fucking hide from me now.”

Hannibal let himself become visible, and Will convulsed in another sob, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. Hannibal was utterly lost, suspended in mid-air and floundering for something to say in the face of Will’s inexplicable breakdown.

Gently, he lowered himself so he was eye level with Will. “You know me?”

“Yes. You… don’t you remember?”

“I know very little of my life. I picked up things from those who came through the house, who searched and cleaned and gossiped as they did so. Things that ought, I suppose, to be gruesome.”

“You never saw them that way.”

“Did you?”

“I think I was starting to…” A deep, shuddering breath. “...starting to see things your way.”

“You meant something to me?”

“I hope I did. I hope I do.” At this, Will sat up fully and swung his legs off the table, sitting at the edge with his elbows on his thighs, his head in his hands, and looking utterly defeated. “You were my therapist, briefly. And then… we had conversations. You wanted to be my friend, for reasons I still don’t understand.”

“You truly have no idea how fascinating you are, have you?”

Will looked up, a painful mix of hope and sorrow flashing across his face before he schooled it into neutrality. “Anyway, you helped me. We made a good team.” Will explained how their relationship had grown, how they’d seemed to understand each other on a level that neither could explain. And as he did so, Hannibal saw the last few months of his life burst into colour, memories crowding in where once there had been only empty space.

“Of course, I didn’t know what you were then. Not… not consciously anyway.”

“What would you have done, were you aware?”

Will’s hands twitched on the edge of the table.

“I don’t… don’t know.”

“Why did you buy my house, Will?”

He looked away, almost bashfully. “I wanted… to be close to you. And I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else being in your space.” He sighed and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “The day you died, I had to walk into your office to examine the scene. Jack made me look at it, I didn’t want to. But when I did, I recognised something I should have a long time ago.”

“That I was the Ripper.”

“No, I’d already figured that out, I just didn’t want to deal with it.” Will’s mouth quirked in a wry smile, and he looked back at Hannibal, deep into his eyes. “What I realised was that I was in love with the Ripper.”

Will’s words hung in the silence, as fragile and powerful as Hannibal’s continued presence in the world.

“Remarkable boy,” Hannibal murmured, and reached out for Will, only for his hand to pass straight through him.

The room around them shook on its foundations, as Hannibal struggled to bring his frustration under control.

“I am sorry, dear Will,” he said as the room finally stilled. “I cannot be all I would have wished to be to you. I am but a shadow of myself.”

Will gave him an assessing look. “Oh Hannibal,” he said, lips canting into a grin. “You underestimate me.” 

~~~

In the Piazza della Signoria, her white sundress aglow in the crystalline sun, a young woman laughed in delight as she attempted to keep her excitable companions under control. Walking all seven dogs at once was proving a challenge and while there was little the young woman was not equal to, on this occasion she felt it would be rude to get under the feet of the assembled crowd, and so turned to get the attention of the gentleman looking on with amusement at her efforts.

“Hey, Dad, care to help get your other children under control?” Abigail called.

“Admitting defeat already, honey?” Will raised himself from his perch and strolled towards Abigail, grinning when she poked her tongue out at him.

“Not all of us possess your freakish dog whisperer powers,” she retorted, shoving the leashes into his hand. “And besides, Buster is harder to control than four normal dogs all by himself.”

Will cast a glance at the little terrier, who was currently trying to catch the ever-patient Winston’s tail. “Point.”

“I need to go soon, anyway, I’m meeting Vincenzo for dinner.”

“You should bring him over to the house again, Abs, I’d like to get to know him better.”

“Right, not like last time you traumatised him with the world’s most terrifying shovel talk.”

“In your father’s defence,” a third voice interrupted smoothly, “he did not employ an actual shovel, which I would say was remarkably restrained of him.”

Hannibal planted a kiss on Abigail’s cheek when she rolled her eyes at him, and then slung his arm around Will’s waist, reeling him in to kiss him too, briefly but deeply.

“Ugh,” Abigail said, perfectly teenage in her tone despite having turned twenty a few months previously. “Can we keep the ZDAs to a minimum, please?”

“ZDAs?” Hannibal asked, while Will just groaned.

“Zombie Displays of Affection.”

“Ah.” Hannibal’s lips pursed. “I do wish you wouldn’t call me that, _brangioji_.”

“Sorry pops,” she grinned, laughing as he frowned at the equally-disliked nickname. “Ok, now that you two have each other to annoy, I’ve gotta go.”

“Have a pleasant evening, dear,” Hannibal told her.

“Behave yourself, young lady,” Will added.

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything you guys wouldn’t do,” she called, already dancing away from them and stopping only to give Winston’s head a ruffle before she was gone.

“How does she do that?” Will asked, shaking his head.

“Do what, _mylimasis_?”

“Always know exactly the least reassuring thing to say to us.”

“She is a young, beautiful, independent woman. I imagine nothing she does will be reassuring to us for years to come.” Hannibal buried his head in Will’s curls, as Will groaned again, imagining the sleepless nights sure to result from Abigail’s forays into adulthood.

“Promise you won’t leave me alone to deal with her again,” he implored.

“Quite impossible,” Hannibal responded, his voice muffled by Will’s hair. “I will only die when you do, my love.”

It was one of the better side-effects of Hannibal’s resurrection, along with enhanced stamina and strength. His life was inextricably linked to Will’s, since Will had been the one to reunite his spirit with his flesh (having revealed that, along with fishing and boat repair, his Louisiana upbringing had also taught him more than a little in the way of dark magic). The negative effects were either easily ignored (an inability to tan) or not so different from his previous incarnation (little need of sleep, a craving for human flesh). Both Hannibal and Will would have suffered much worse to be together.

And the best side effect, of course, was the ease with which they had left Baltimore behind for a new life. Hannibal was still officially dead, and no one was looking for a dead serial killer. And Will, having finally adopted Abigail, simply declared that everyone had been right about the house, and he was selling up and moving on. They were free, and if anyone found it strange that Will’s husband, Doctor Fell, bore a remarkable resemblance to his former psychiatrist-slash-murder-suspect, well, there was always room at their table for a dinner guest.

“Shall we return home, caro mio?” Hannibal asked, dropping a kiss to Will’s head and finally extracting himself from his curls.

“You make me feel like Morticia Addams when you call me that,” Will groused, good-naturedly.

“Hmm, you are dark and beautiful, with a taste for the unorthodox and dangerous,” Hannibal mused. “I think the comparison fits rather well.”

“In that case, maybe I should ask you to grow a moustache. Assuming zombies can do that.”

“Not you too. Simply because I have no heartbeat, does not mean I don’t have feelings, Will.”

“Sorry, sorry. I meant undead Lithuanian.”

“I despise you.”

“No you don’t.”

“No. I don’t.”

Will tipped his face up for a kiss and Hannibal obliged, as he always would. Even death couldn’t stop him, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda nervous about this one - it's pretty far out of my comfort zone - so any comments or kudos would be even more cherished than usual <3 Or come see me on [tumblr!](http://victorineb.tumblr.com)


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